Friends 'n' neighbors, a crack team of diligent researchers and writers kept awake around the clock by intravenous infusions of Code Red Mountain Dew could not adequately chronicle the heaving incoherence that erupts from the spastic colon of the conservablogs. Ed at Gin and Tacos sums it up pretty well.
The fundamental problem in establishing a right-wing “alternative” media is not a systemic bias. It is the inescapable fact that they have absolutely nothing interesting to say and are woefully inarticulate in saying it.
This is true not only of Underoos' ridonkulous bidness model in particular, but the content model of most of their participants in general. I just lost the stomach for it years ago -- the tone-deaf intellectual dishonesty; the full-throated tautologies; the tedious logrolling; the obnoxiously bold assertions, either very quietly retracted or (more often) completely ignored when shown to be erroneous or false; the inept rubber-glue reactionism to even the most simple and indisputable of points. The same hysterical, convoluted, conflated talking points, turning on a dime to suit the shifting sands of the daily outrage.
Almost invariably it adds up to piss-poor reasoning and debating skills, frequently made more intolerable by incompetent writing. I find it difficult enough to endure poor writing with people I essentially agree with; it's incomprehensible to me to sit through the ritual abuse of an electronic feces-chucking lower primate, unencumbered by the conventional constraints of mechanics and logic. Who needs it?
The first time around they're funny, because you figure they gotta be fuckin' with you, that no sentient being could fail to see the inherent ridiculousness of the clowns and reprobates who present their filthy arguments as responsible government, or jive-ass mascots such as
They're interesting primarily from a sociological perspective, an object lesson in what end-stage societal decay can culminate in -- people with the time not only to lie to themselves and each other, but to evangelize their nonsense at unsuspecting passersby.
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the tone-deaf intellectual dishonesty; the full-throated tautologies; the tedious logrolling; the obnoxiously bold assertions, either very quietly retracted or (more often) completely ignored when shown to be erroneous or false; the inept rubber-glue reactionism to even the most simple and indisputable of points. The same hysterical, convoluted, conflated talking points, turning on a dime to suit the shifting sands of the daily outrage. ... -- people with the time not only to lie to themselves and each other, but to evangelize their nonsense at unsuspecting passersby.
Now that ownership of the puppet show has passed from the Titular Right to the Titular Left, expect to see these descriptions to apply more and more to Democrats over the next few years at least. It might be easier to bear since you say you can endure poor writing _better_ from people you fundamentally agree with, but I bet that pleasant side effect wears off after a year or so.
... I meant, "easier for _US BOTH_ to bear" -- I wasn't trying to single you out as a partisan or anything like that. I'm on your side, but dreading the next few years for those reasons.
I suppose it all comes down to what one's personal over/under happens to be, in being willing to wait for the much-promised rollout of the hope and/or change. On the one hand, it seems almost miserly to cram the guy down in less than a hundred days; on the other, his main course of action thus far has been to put the foxes back on henhouse duty on Wall Street. All this talk of opportunities for real change, and they hand the economy back to the criminals who wrecked it.
No doubt there's plenty of folks who, no matter what, will be happy and grateful to remind themselves daily that whatever goes down, it's better than what Grampa Simpson and his crazy arctic milf sidekick woulda done. And they'll congratulate themselves for their hard-headed pragmatism, rather than their woolly-headed idealism. They may get hoarse after four years of that.
Since Obama's most public opponents are braying teabaggers and flat-out loons like Glenn Beck, he's become undeservedly insulated from more legitimate criticism. And pragmatically, that's really too bad, because it allows things to get worse before circumstances force him to attempt to do the things he should have done in the first place.
Personally, this is an existential dilemma I saw coming last summer, as (I hope) an intellectually honest observer of the political landscape. I have no trouble criticizing Obama while acknowledging that McCain/Palin would have been infinitely worse, but I can certainly see that more partisan types won't play it like that. Their ability to decouple those two elements will be more crucial than they realize.
Since Obama's most public opponents are braying teabaggers and flat-out loons like Glenn Beck, he's become undeservedly insulated from more legitimate criticism. And pragmatically, that's really too bad,...Bull's eye. Not only have the Democrats utterly failed as an opposition party for decades, but the Republicans have too, even when they were in power. None of these politicians would recognize a piece of cogent, constructive criticism if it bit them in the @$$. That's the fundamental problem, isn't it? In multiparty parliamentary democracies like maybe England, they have a dozen different "Loony Parties" to draw off and diffuse the insane mouthbreather vote. Here in the USA, we have two parties, and they're both loony. Vote for whichever one you like.
That's why I read this blog. Wow. Succinct and profound. Thanks.
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